GEESE WHICH OCCUR IN CALIFORNIA. 



BY L. BELDING. 



The earlier writers credited this State with five forms of geese. 

 These are now known to ornithologists as Chen hyperborea, Anser 

 albifrons ganibeli, Brayita catiadeiisis occide7italis,B. ca?iadensis hutch- 

 insii, and B. nigricans. In the fall of 1878 I sent a specimen of 

 Chen rossii, which I got at Stockton, to the National Museum. It 

 may have been collected here previously, but this was the first that 

 I know of. 



Number 76,654 of the U. S. National Museum, published in 

 Partial List of Birds of Central California, under the name of Chett 

 albains, was probably a juvenile C hyperborea, but I am not quite 

 convinced that such is the fact. I think Mr. Ridgway ascertained 

 that albatiis is a synonym of hyperborea. 



In 1885 Mr. Ridgway gave the smallest goose of the canadensis 

 pattern of coloration the name of Branta tninima, but afterward, 

 during the same year, reduced it to subspecific rank, with the name 

 of B. canadejisis minima. A year or two later Mr. C. H. Town- 

 send published the fact that Mr. Fiebig had collected Philacte 

 canagica at Eureka, and during the past winter Mr. Ridgway iden- 

 tified parts of a goose I sent the National Museum from Stockton 

 as belonging to a true Chen ccerulescens. 



Besides these, I believe the typical Branta canadensis occurs in 

 California, but doubt if any specimen is in existence to prove the 

 correctness of this opinion. 



It may not be inappropriate in this connection to remind the or- 

 nithologists of California that we need a collection that contains a 

 series of every American bird, and that without such a collection 

 efforts to progress are unnecessarily difficult and will continue to be 

 unsatisfactory. 



Lesser Snow Goose. Che7i hyperborea. This is the very 

 abundant white goose, which breeds in Alaska; reaches California 

 about the first of October (Stockton Sept. 29, 1881; Gridley Sept. 

 30, 1884; Stockton Sep. 28, 1886), and leaves for its northern breed- 

 ing grounds about the middle of April, a few remaining as late as 

 the first of May. 



At Stockton, in 1880, I saw the last flock April 30. They had been. 

 rare since the twentieth. They were last seen at Gridley April 28^ 



